Just as during the festival of Holi, people take a lot of liberties with each other saying “Bura na maano, Holi hai” (please don’t mind, this is Holi), so also the new mantra of the Congress party is to respond to charges of heinous corruption, murders, mayhem, rapes and instigating riots is: “Bura na mano, we are Secular”. However, the pranks people play on Holi are relatively innocent and the play is with colours. But the Congress is playing a very divisive and bloody game which has life and death consequences for India and its people.

The mask of “secularism” is what allows numerous Kamal Naths to continue to reign supreme in the Congress Party despite their involvement in the 1984 massacre of Sikhs; this is how Congress Party can overlook thousands of communal and caste riots under its regimes; this is how Lalu Yadav and Mayawati as valued partners of UPA brazen out corruption cases against them; this is how a goonda infested party headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, charged with massive scams retains the badge of honour reserved for “secular” allies of Congress party; this is how Abhishek Manu Singhvi returns as Congress party’s official spokesman despite the most revolting evidence of him demanding sexual favours from a woman lawyer aspiring to be a Judge of the Delhi High Court; this is how the Party can justify its alliance with Muslim League in Kerala; this is how Sonia Gandhi and her relatives get away with using the state machinery to protect them from countless charges of corruption and crime; this is how Omar Abdullah keeps getting good character certificates from the Congress High Command despite having been personally implicated in humungous corruption, large scale human rights abuses and killings under his regime, including alleged murder of a senior party colleague. The list of all sins, all crimes justified/forgiven to the Congress Party and its allies because of the mask of secularism are endless.

A good illustration of this mind set is the sudden propping up of IPS Officer Sanjiv Bhatt as one of the prime stars of anti Modi Brigade in 2009

R.K Raghavan

On 23rd March 2008, in response to a petition filed by Ehsan Jafri’s widow, Zakia Jafri along with Teesta Setalvad, alleging criminal conspiracy by Narendra Modi’s government, a “deliberate and intentional failure” to protect life and property, and failure to fulfill their constitutional duty, the Supreme Court appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chief R K Raghavan, to “inquire and investigate” cases relating to the various incidents connected with 2002 riots. In 2009, the Court directed the SIT to investigate the actions of Modi and 62 other people named in Jafri’s petition. (I will write about this petition later). It is at this point that Bhatt was brought in as a prime witness against Modi.

Sanjiv Bhatt made three allegations against Modi in 2009. The Special Investigative Team appointed and monitored by the Supreme Court of India dismissed each one of those allegations to be false and motivated. After prolonged and thorough inquiries among several other reasons cited by the SIT to dismiss Bhatt’s charges, they noted:

Sanjiv Bhatt has not been able to give any satisfactory explanation why he did not file an affidavit before Nanavati Commission and also did not appear as a witness in response to the Govt. circular before any legal authority when he was in possession of plethora of information and was an eyewitness to some of the important events. He fails to explain why he did not respond to a public notice issued by SIT on 11-04-2008. His silence for a period of more than nine years without any proper explanation appears to be callous and gives an impression that he is trying to manipulate things to his personal advantage to settle his service matters.” (SIT report page no.35-36)

On being questioned, as to why did he not appear as a witness in response to a public notice issued by SIT on 11-03-2008, he claimed that he did not disclose the same to anyone, as it would not have been appropriate on his part to divulge any information that he was privy to as an Intelligence Officer unless he was under a legal obligation to do so.

He also stated that he did not file any affidavit or appeared before any commission or body enquiring into the communal riots of 2002, because he was not asked by the Govt. of Gujarat, DGP or Addl. DG (Int.) to do so. However, he denied knowledge as to whether the so called instructions given by the Chief Minister were passed on to the field units by any of the officers, who had attended the meeting on 27-02-2002. [He needs to explain who put him under “legal obligation” to make common cause with anti Modi NGOs and Congress party to personally target Modi after 9 years of silence].

Instead of succeeding in getting Modi implicated, Sanjiv Bhatt ended up being seriously indicted by the SIT for his mischief. SIT also took note of criminal cases against Bhatt which are incidentally all from pre-Modi days. They include charges of recruitment scam under his charge as SP Banaskanta, abduction, killings and planting narcotics with a view to blackmail. The SIT report not only lists his past criminal record and dubious credentials but also concludes after investigating his charges that Bhatt lied and brought in tutored witnesses to implicate Modi. Gujarat Vigilance Commission recommended twice on 15-07-2002 and 19-10-2006 that Sanjiv Bhatt should be placed under suspension for his professional misconducts, but Bhatt managed to get stay orders from the court each time. SIT concludes: “…it can be inferred that Sanjiv Bhatt is facing a lot of problems in service matters and has got an axe to grind against the Govt. of Gujarat and, therefore, his evidence is ill motivated and cannot be relied upon.”

But since the media either ignored the SIT report or joined Teesta Setalvad in attacking SIT and continued repeating the same old hackneyed charges against Modi even after he was cleared by the SIT report, Bhatt continued being treated as a hero who had taken on the “Hitlerian tyrant” Modi.

A batch mate of Sanjiv Bhatt who has known him from the days of their training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Mussoorie told me that from the very start he had acquired such a notorious reputation that no self-respecting trainees wanted to engage with him. Even after he joined the service, he was shunned by the honest among officers because of his dirty deals and high handed behaviour.

This is what former Additional Director General Police; AI Syedwho was his direct boss for some time and wrote his first “Annual Confidential Report” (ACR) had to say about him:

“When I was Superintendent of Police in Mehsana, Sanjiv Bhatt was my supernumerary. I wrote his first ACR in which I said: ‘He acts first and thinks later’. He really needed to be kept under control. Before he left Mehsana I told some officers, his actions are so wild he will be in jail someday. That was my prediction in 1990. He would open fire over petty things. For example, at one time he fired at a group of youngsters simply because they were gambling. At the time of 2002 riots, he was nowhere on the scene. He had so many cases and complaints against him including charges of abduction, extortion and unprovoked firing that he was not getting a promotion. The Vigilance Commission had recommended his suspension. But DG Pandey took pity on him. He corrected his ACRs and promoted him as DIG. He was sent as a training officer near SRP, Junagarh. But Bhatt wanted to be posted in Ahmedabad. So he decided to create a ruckus. He is known for using blackmail any time he is in trouble or denied a promotion. Had he been posted in Ahmedabad, he would have not filed false cases against Modi and his officers. He is a sirfira (crackpot) type. A man who is callous with his own parents is not going to be loyal to anyone else. I know him inside out(rag- rag jaanta hoon main iski). When his father was lying critically ill in hospital, he never went to see him once.

When Sanjiv Bhatt was posted as SP, Rajpipla in Narmada district, the prince of Rajpipla invited him to stay for free in a part of his Palace. Even after her got transferred out of Rajpipla, he refused to vacate the palace. What is worse he had started an affair with the wife of his benefactor. That was another reason for his refusal to vacate the Palace. He is essentially a namak haram– never true to the salt of his benefactors. The DG Police as well as Congress leader Ahmed Patel had to intervene to get him to vacate the palace.

This is the kind of life he has lived and now he pretends to be the new Mahatma Gandhi. This is all dirty politics. They are not going to get honest officers to make false complaints. Only compromised people will do so. The reason is they have their share in everything. They have gobbled up enormous loads of money in the name of helping riot victims. For that they need to keep the Muslim community in a state of siege.”

A senior official told me: “Sanjiv Bhatt was always given inconsequential postings to minimise his nuisance value and harmful tendencies.” Another senior bureaucrat said:

“Bhatt has a long track record of blackmailing not just people under his charge but also his fellow officers and bosses. Every time he gets into trouble, he resorts to blackmail. In all his postings, he committed plenty of high handed acts. Most people are terrified of filing cases against police officers because they have the power and clout to ruin your life. But three serious criminal cases filed against him reached the courts. But Bhatt is a past master in getting stay orders in cases against him. That is why action could not be taken against him; despite a very unsavoury track record and even after the Vigilance Commission ordered his suspension. Since Bhatt is a Gujarati and there are very few Gujarati’s in bureaucracy, Bhatt is able to play on Gujarati connections to escape punishment. This time round Supreme Court came to his rescue by giving a stay order on Bhatt’s trial.”

I provide relevant sections of the SIT report indicting Bhatt for his pre-2002 misdemeanours that resulted in criminal cases against him as well as his testimony against Modi. Sections marked in blue are my comments. The rest of the paras are staright from SIT report with minor editorial changes in the interest of brevity.

It is a great irony that azadi –a word with so many positive associations, including India’s freedom struggle, should evoke such fearful images among our political establishment and a large section of the intelligentsia in India when uttered by Kashmiris. It was Lokmanya Tilak who gave us the slogan: “Freedom is my birthright”. (azadi mera janmasiddh adhikar hai). Gandhi went a step further and defined “Swaraj” or self rule, as opposed to mere ousting of the British, as the raison d’etre of our anti colonial movement.

Most of us have been conditioned to believe that when Kashmiris come on streets demanding azadi, they do so only at the behest of Pakistani agents. There is no denying that Pakistan has injected a lot of poison into the blood veins of Kashmiri politics and vitiated the culture and society by fomenting religious strife with a lethal dose of fundamentalist Islam. But we would do well to recognize that it is the irresponsible and mischievous deeds of our own politicians that provides a conducive environment for converting the urge for azadi into a pro Pak secessionist agenda and makes this minority acquire disproportionate clout in the political affairs of Kashmir.

New Delhi August 8, 2012: On behalf of Kashmir committee I would like to clarify that our recent visit to Srinagar and our meetings with various political leaders was not aimed at proposing any “compromise formula” or any particular solution to any of the leaders, as mistakenly reported in several Kashmir papers. That is NOT our mandate.

I would also like to clarify that neither anybody in the government nor any of the political leaders of Kashmir have authorized us to bring separatist leaders to come around to accepting the PDP Self Rule document as a starting point for resolution of the Kashmir problem as wrongly reported in several Kashmir papers. This is a total misrepresentation of our mission.

Finally, a significant breakthrough in the deadly impasse between Government of India’s attitude with regard to Swami Gyan Swarup Sanand’s (formerly Prof. G.D. Aggarwal) fast unto death from February 7, 2012 to save Ganga from total annihilation.

This afternoon, March 23, following a signed agreement with the representatives of the Prime Minister, Swami Sanand agreed to give partially up his fast unto death by consenting to take just liquids till April 17 when the Prime Minister will invite him to address a special meeting of the National Ganga River Basin Authority.

Swami Sanand Continues His Fast Unto Death under Police Custody in AIIMS

Manushi friends will recall that Swami Gyan Swarup Sanand (Formerly Professor G D Aggarwal of IIT Kanpur) had broken his tapasya for saving Ganga involving going without food and water on March 23, 2012 on the assurance of two Central Government ministers who came as Prime Minister’s emissaries. They had given their solemn word that the Prime Minister would:

We know what Narendra Modi said about Sunanda Tharoor. But we weren’t told about the rest of that speech

Now that the pious outrage over Narendra Modi’s tasteless remark describing Sunanda Pushkar as a “50-crore rupee girlfriend” of Shashi Tharoor has subsided, I hope we can examine the issue in perspective.

I write this after viewing Modi’s entire speech on YouTube, delivered during the election campaign in Himachal Pradesh. It provides an illustrative example of how our media steadfastly avoids discussion on serious issues and picks up only sensational and titillating tidbits, especially with regard to women, even while pretending to be guardians of women’s rights and honour.

The systematic demonisation of Narendra Modi in the media began with Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan. Though Patkar has played a historic role in raising awareness about the plight of villagers whose lands are arbitrarily taken away for mega dams and “development projects”, she did an incalculable harm to her own cause by overstating her case, especially with regard to resettlement operations of dam oustees in Gujarat. It projected Modi government in particular and all Gujaratis in general as intrinsically demonic forces that were out to decimate the “poor tribals”.